Microsoft is reverting Windows 11's BSoD from black to blue

midian182

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In brief: Windows 11 users, do you find the black screen of death jarring and miss the comforting familiarity of the traditional blue screen? Then here’s something to cheer about: Microsoft is undoing a controversial change it made in its latest OS, returning the B in BSoD back to the primary color.

It was during July when those on the Windows Insider Program started seeing a black screen of death in the Windows 11 preview instead of the usual blue one, marking the biggest major change to the error message since Microsoft added the sad face to Windows 8 in 2012, and QR codes in 2016.

But for those who prefer their fatal errors to come in calming blue rather than gothic black, the good news is that Microsoft is changing course. Ars Technica reports that the company recently pushed out a bug-fix update (version number 22000.346) for Window 11 to its Beta and Release Preview Insider channels. In among the update’s extensive list of alterations and fixes was this:

We changed the screen color to blue when a device stops working or a stop error occurs as in previous versions of Windows.

The blue screen of death has been around since the early 1990s. Microsoft never explicitly explained why it changed the color in Windows 11, though it was presumably part of a ‘new OS, new look’ plan.

Most Windows users weren’t too enamored with the color change, which could explain why Microsoft has gone back to blue, or perhaps it’s because seeing one of these messages can be depressing enough without it being shrouded in black. Whatever the reason, expect to see the new/old blue screen of death rolling out to Windows 11 machines in a future update, one that could very well cause a BSoD.

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What about all the money they put into researching a new best color to use and all the time they spent coding in the new color?......

On the other hand, maybe them trying to code in the new black color caused other bugs and they couldn't figure out how to fix them so they had to go back to blue. This is the most plausible reason why they dropped black and went back to blue.
 
Who cares about the background color of a stupid error code. I they need to spend more time fixing Windows 11 and put back features they took away.
 
Why not user selectable? I want emerald green or maybe candy apple red.
I still wouldn't want my PC to crash. Even if I had the option to select the color.

Crash message: "Your PC has just crashed. What color do you want your crash screen to be? Please select a color to resume your crash.
0 = Black, 1 = Blue, 2 = Green, 3 = Aqua, 4 = Red, 5 = Purple,
6 = Yellow, 7 = White, 8 = Gray, 9 = Light Blue, A = Light Green,
B = Light Aqua, C = Light Red, D = Light Purple, E = Light Yellow,
F = Bright White - 0 for Black, 1 for Blue, 7 for White"

Could be as easy as changing command-line color.
C:\Windows\System32>color /H
Sets the default console foreground and background colors.

COLOR [attr]

attr Specifies color attribute of console output

Color attributes are specified by TWO hex digits -- the first
corresponds to the background; the second the foreground. Each digit
can be any of the following values:

0 = Black 8 = Gray
1 = Blue 9 = Light Blue
2 = Green A = Light Green
3 = Aqua B = Light Aqua
4 = Red C = Light Red
5 = Purple D = Light Purple
6 = Yellow E = Light Yellow
7 = White F = Bright White

I'm actually surprised they haven't coded the crash screen the way their installation media rotates though the color spectrum.
 
Next make it WHITE, so you can feel the "peace" and "serenity" of a WSOD...
How about a gull flying off into the sunset? That would induce a feeling of tranquility and signify Windows' departure in one serene image.

"Oh poo, Windows flew off into the sunset. Bring me another beer will ya dear"?
 
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